A drifting cowboy: 2026

For me, that turn happened in the summer of 1950. I was a seven-and-a-half-year-old city kid with a big dream, standing in the high pine country thirty miles outside Kalispell, Montana. That was the summer my granduncle—Alonzo Earl "Lon" Brown (1898–1980)—put me on a horse, handed me the reins, and set my compass for the next seventy years.

The Road North in a Brand New Ford

Back in 1950, my dad had just built and sold a house along with a piece of land down in California. He was "cowboy rich"—as the saying goes—and he did what any self-respecting man would do at the end of a good drive: he bought a brand-new Ford, loaded up the family, and pointed the hood north toward Idaho and Montana to visit Mom's kin.

Our first stop was in Lewiston, Idaho, at Aunt Meda Bailey-Slocum and Herb Slocum’s dairy farm. Bright and early the first morning, Uncle Herb had me sitting on a stool in the barn learning to milk a cow. Herb was my instant buddy, and to my seven-year-old mind, a fellow cowpoke (though I learned later that real cowboys wouldn't be caught dead milking a cow unless they were trying to save an orphan maverick!).

From there, we trailed through Grand Teton and Yellowstone, where I saw grizzly bears up close—pretty terrifying critters even from behind a car window. But the real destination lay further north, across the Flathead Valley.

30 Miles into the Backwoods: The Creston Stump Ranch

We rolled into Kalispell, where Uncle Lon drove into town to meet us and lead our Ford thirty miles out into the dense backwoods.

Lon and Aunt Olive lived on what they called a sure-enough stump ranch. He had nearly a full section of lodgepole pine, with seventeen acres of pasture created the hard way: pulling, blowing up, and burning massive tree stumps one single block of wood at a time.

THE STUMP RANCH LIFE

[THE LAND] [THE SUBSISTENCE]

• Nearly 1 Section Lodgepole Pine • Elk & Deer Hunting

• 17-Acre Hand-Cleared Pasture • Timber Logging & Firewood

• 30 Miles from Kalispell • Small Herd of Cattle

Living that far out gave a family room to roam. Uncle Lon logged timber, ran a few head of cows, hunted elk, and kept a garden—whatever it took to keep grease in the pan and food on the table.

Finding a Mentor and a Lifelong Passion

That week in 1950 changed my life forever. Aunt Olive gave me her wide-brimmed cowboy hat and a pair of boots that fit just right. Then Uncle Lon walked me over to a handsome gelding named Brownie—who officially belonged to Olive—and turned him over to me.

"He's yours while you're here, kid," Lon told me. "And he'll do what he's told."

For the next several days, ol' Brownie and I became inseparable. We explored every inch of that seventeen-acre pasture, herded cows, and rode under the Big Sky. Right then and there, I vowed I was going to be a cowboy and move to Montana when I grew up.

THE LESSONS OF UNCLE LON

[1950] The First Saddle ── Handed the reins of "Brownie" at age 7

[1950] The Pack Trip ── Tail-holding up the steep trail to Strawberry Lake

[1950] The Big Catch ── Fishing for rainbow trout from an inflatable raft

[1950s+] LA Decembers ── Lon bringing truckloads of Christmas trees & canned elk

The grand climax of that trip was a high-country pack expedition up to Strawberry Lake. When the trail got so steep and narrow that my young legs couldn't keep up, Uncle Lon showed me an old mountain trick: he had me wrap my hands tight into Brownie's tail, letting that good horse pull me right up the mountain.

We fished from an inflatable four-man raft on Strawberry Lake, and as luck would have it, the city kid landed the biggest trout of the trip.

Old Montana

A poem written for Uncle Lon and the 1950 Montana trail:

I went for a visit to the family homestead about 1950.

Mom introduced me to ol' Montana, it sure was nifty.

They had horses and cows and I met Uncle Lon there.

With you it's my memories of that trip I'd like to share.

You see my Mom came from a hearty family branch,

That made their living on a sure enough stump ranch.

They hunted elk, logged timber, an' raised a few cows,

Had a garden too, what ever put food in their mouths.

Lon had nearly a section of land covered with Lodgepole pine,

17 acres was pasture created by removing one stump at a time.

An' living 30 miles from Kalispell gave them room to roam.

To this very day I think of that ol' ranch as my second home.

Uncle Lon put me on a horse when I was just seven years old,

Said he was mine while I was there an' he'd do what he was told.

The truth is he belonged to my aunt Olive, Brownie was his name,

But he was my first horse to ride, and I loved him all the same.

I was from the city, but with me Aunt Olive knew what to do,

She gave me her wide brimmed hat and cowboy boots too.

For the next several days ol' Brownie an' me grew to be pals,

We explored every inch of that pasture an' herded some cows.

I vowed I'll be a cowboy an' move to Montana when I’m growen,

Now a lot of years have passed but someday to Montana I'm goin'.

An' thanks to Uncle Lon I've still got a little horse for a best friend.

Her name is Kasidy an' we're gonna ride in Montana before our end.

Long Memories & The Final Trail

In the decades that followed, Uncle Lon remained a constant fixture in our lives. Nearly every December, he’d drive a truckload of fresh Montana Christmas trees down to Los Angeles to sell. He never showed up empty-handed—he always brought jars of home-canned elk meat and sweet wild huckleberry jam harvested from the Flathead slopes.

1975 Lon Brown and Copper

Uncle Lon passed away on April 2, 1980, in Kalispell at the age of 82, and was laid to rest in the Flathead soil he loved.

He was the last of that rugged generation of Browns who cleared the timber and broke the sod. But thanks to him, that seven-year-old boy never forgot how it felt to sit in a saddle, hold the reins, and look out over the Big Sky country.

Yours truly riding’ with cousins Earl, Dale and uncle Lon in Kalispell

Master Index: The Montana Pioneers Series

Part I: John Galloway Brown (1833–1915) — New York Cheesemaker & Voyageur Union
Part II: Abraham Lincoln Brown (1864–1948) — The Creston Stump Ranch & Mountain Brook Claim
Part III: Franklin Jackson Bailey (1886–1968) — Nebraska Soddy to Montana Timber & Idaho Wheat
Part IV: Alonzo "Lon" Brown (1898–1980) — The Mentor, Strawberry Lake, and a Lifetime in the Saddle

Key Family Genealogy Notes

Alonzo Earl "Lon" Brown: b. 16 Mar 1898, Adams, NY – d. 2 Apr 1980, Kalispell, MT.
Flavie Olive Brown: b. 13 May 1913 – d. 26 Jun 2005, Kalispell, MT.
Burial: Kalispell, Flathead County, Montana.
Sons: Earl William Brown (1933–2016) and Dale Brown (1934–2013).

A Drifting Cowboy and Kasidy May in Chatsworth

Thank you Gemini AI for your wisdom and research assistance. -- Drifting Cowboy

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

MONTANA PIONEERS: Franklin Jackson Bailey (Part III)

Franklin Bailey and his Belgium colt c. 1898, Nebraska

If you follow the tracks of the Bailey outfit back to where my grandfather Franklin Jackson Bailey (1886–1968) got his start, you won't find a fancy house or settled township. You'll find a rough soddy sitting out on the wind-scoured prairie of Liberty Township, Valley County, Nebraska.

Born on April 29, 1886, Frank was raised on prairie dust, sod bricks, and hard work. His folks, David Jackson Bailey (1865–1949) and Lillian Amanda Pierce (1867–1957), made their living farming and breeding heavy Belgian draft horses. But when relentless drought and prairie dust storms stripped the Nebraska country bare around 1902, the Baileys loaded up and headed west to Latah County, Idaho, where they set up shop farming and logging near Kendrick.

Big Sky Fever and the 2nd Montana Infantry

Young men have a habit of wandering where the country is wild, and in the spring of 1908, Frank and his brother Len decided to head up into the Flathead country around Kalispell, Montana.

They went up for a summer of trout fishing in Flathead Lake and hunting elk in the shadow of the high Rockies. Surrounded by dense pine forests and the wilderness that would soon become Glacier National Park, the Bailey boys fell head-over-heels for the Flathead Valley.

FRANK'S MONTANA ARRIVAL & SERVICE

[1886] Born in a Nebraska Sod House (Liberty Twp, Valley Co.)

│

[1902] Family Drift to Kendrick, Latah County, Idaho

│

[1908] Summer Fishing & Hunting Trip to Kalispell, Montana

│

[1908] Enlists in Company H, 2nd Montana Infantry (Kalispell)

By March 1908, the fishing money had run dry, but neither Frank nor Len wanted to leave. To keep grease in the pan and stay in the valley, they marched down to the local armory and enlisted as privates in Company H of the 2nd Montana Infantry. A few hours of military drill every week was a small price to pay for a steady paycheck in the high country.

The Huckleberry Patch and an 80-Acre Slice of Heaven

It turned out that staying in the Flathead was the best move Frank ever made. While out picking wild huckleberries on the mountain slopes near Creston, Frank crossed paths with a young frontier woman named Lydia Corinna Brown (1891–1971).

Lydia was the daughter of Abraham Lincoln Brown and Geneva "Neva" Plympton—a true daughter of the Flathead stump-ranch country. Frank was instantly smitten.

THE BAILEY-BROWN UNION

Franklin Jackson Bailey Lydia Corinna Brown

(1886–1968) (1891–1971)

========================== ==========================

• S/o David Jackson Bailey • D/o Abraham Lincoln Brown

• Sod House-Born Homesteader • Granddaughter of Voyageur Stock

• Belgian Horseman & Logger • Flathead Valley Daughter

On September 4, 1912, Frank and Lydia were married in Kalispell. They filed papers on an 80-acre slice of Montana heaven near Creston and started building a life together. Like Lydia’s family, they logged the heavy timber, raised cattle and Belgian horses, grew a subsistence garden, and spent long winters cutting, splitting, and hauling firewood into Kalispell to keep cash coming in.

Over the next few years, their home filled with young ones: first Opal Beulah in 1913, followed by my mother, Velma Veda, in 1914, and Vernon Frank in 1917. (Daughters Hazel May and Muriel Neva would complete the crew after the move to Idaho).

The Cracking of the Frontier: Why the Baileys Left Montana

By 1918, the dream on the Creston stump ranch began to unravel. It wasn't a lack of grit that drove Frank and Lydia off their claim—it was a perfect storm of environmental disaster and wartime economic shocks that swept through the Flathead Valley between 1916 and 1918:

The Great Montana Drought (1917): After years of good rainfall, the skies closed up tight in 1917. Pastures dried into dust, garden plots failed, and the small-scale stump ranchers couldn't grow enough feed to carry their cattle through the harsh winters.
WWI Hyper-Inflation: When America entered the Great War in 1917, the cost of horse tack, iron tools, crosscut saws, and basic supplies skyrocketed. While big wheat barons on the eastern plains cashed in on wartime grain prices, small timber farmers were priced out of existence.
Collapse of the Backcountry Cash Economy: Frank relied on seasonal guiding, hunting, and logging work to raise cash for taxes. When the war hit, domestic travel ground to a halt, drying up the tourism and guiding income that kept small homesteads solvent.
The Pull of the Palouse: Back in Latah County, Idaho, Frank’s family was working the rich, proven volcanic soils of Texas Ridge and Bear Ridge around Kendrick. Returning south meant trading dry timberland for reliable wheat country.

THE RETREAT FROM THE FLATHEAD

[1912] Creston Homestead ── 80 Acres Filed, Logging & Farming

│

[1917] Montana Drought ── Crops Fail, Pastures Burn, Inflation Hits

│

[1918] Wagon Trek South ── 300-Mile Move to Kendrick & Texas Ridge, ID

│

[1920s] Lewiston Orchards── Farming the Snake River Country

│

[1935] Pacific Sunset ── Final Move South to Los Angeles, California

Velma and Vernon c. 1918 in Kalispell, Montana

Sunset on the Pacific: From Idaho Wheat to California War Plants

In 1918, Frank hitched his Belgian draft horses to a canvas-topped wagon, loaded Lydia and their two small children (Opal had succumbed to Scarlet fever 1n 1917), and made the grueling 300-mile trek across the mountain passes back to Kendrick, Idaho.

For the next fifteen years, Frank farmed wheat on Texas Ridge, later moving his family down to the Lewiston Orchards in Nez Perce County. He fought the land, managed his orchards, and raised his five kids through the hard years of the 1920s. But when the Great Depression hit in the early 1930s, the bottom fell out of agriculture completely.

In 1935, Frank made the final, monumental decision that brought a three-century transcontinental march to its end. He packed up the family and moved south to Los Angeles, California.

Settling in the Santa Monica and West Los Angeles area, Frank put his lifelong knowledge of soil and plants to work. During World War II, while his age kept him off the front lines, he served his country as a plant gardener for AiResearch Manufacturing, keeping the facilities running smoothly while the country fought overseas.

Frank Jackson Bailey lived out a long, dignified life in Southern California, passing away on March 15, 1968, at the age of 81. He lies at rest in Forest Lawn, Glendale, having carried his family line from a Nebraska sod house, through the high timber of Montana and the wheat ridges of Idaho, all the way to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Key Family Genealogy Notes

Franklin Jackson Bailey: b. 29 Apr 1886, Liberty Twp, NE – d. 15 Mar 1968, Los Angeles, CA.
Lydia Corinna Brown: b. 13 Sep 1891, Sioux City, IA – d. 25 Dec 1971, Granada Hills, CA.
Burial: Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, Los Angeles County, California.
Children of Frank & Lydia:

Opal Beulah Bailey (1913–1917) – Passed away as a child in Montana.
Velma Veda Bailey (1914–2004) – Born in Kalispell, MT; my mother.
Vernon Frank Bailey (1917–1999) – Born in Creston, MT.
Hazel May Bailey (1919–1999) – Born in Troy, Latah Co., ID.
Muriel Neva Bailey (1924–2012) – Born in Lewiston, Nez Perce Co., ID.

Thank you Gemini AI for your wisdom and research assistance. -- Drifting Cowboy